“She’s fine,” Xhinna lied, gently stroking Jirana’s hand. “You’ll be fine.”
“It hurts,” Jirana moaned. “I knew it would hurt—that’s why I couldn’t tell you.”
“But—”
“Ask the queens,” Jirana said, closing her eyes with a grimace. Xhinna leaned forward, impelled by some inexplicable feeling to catch the words Jirana only breathed: “Trust.”
“She’s young,” Xhinna said, looking to Javissa and then Bekka. “She’s strong.”
Bekka shook her head. “Xhinna, she’s not this strong,” the healer told her quietly. “If she moves when I try to stitch her up, I’ll tear her guts open.”
“Fellis,” Xhinna said, aware that others were gathering near.
“Not good enough for this,” Bekka said. “And she’s in such bad shape, I’m afraid that she might slip too deeply into sleep.”
“We can’t just give up,” Xhinna said. She looked at Javissa, but the trader would not meet her gaze, still stroking her daughter’s hair. “I’m not giving up,” Xhinna declared. She looked at Bekka. “We are not giving up.”
“No,” Bekka agreed. “Of course not.”
“R’ney,” Xhinna called over her shoulder, “take charge here, clean this up, bring the eggs to our sands.”
She bent down and gently put her hand under Jirana’s head.
“We can’t move her,” Bekka said.
“We have to,” Xhinna replied, sliding a hand under the girl’s back and gently lifting her up. Jirana gave a whimper and Xhinna carefully adjusted her position so that the child was cradled in her arms.
“Guide me,” Xhinna said to J’riz. The green rider nodded and slowly led her out of the cave. He climbed up Tazith and helped her raise the stricken girl. Bekka clambered up behind her.
“We’re going to the sands,” Xhinna told her even as she urged Tazith to climb—gently—into the sky.
“You’ve got your kit?” she asked Bekka.
“Yes.”
“And you’ve got the needles and sutures?”
“Yes, Xhinna,” Bekka replied testily. “But this is hard work and it’s still dark.”
Tazith, Xhinna said, picturing an image in her mind, and then they were between. She felt Bekka’s astonishment and worry. The cold of between could do horrible things to an open wound. They came out above the beach, where Pinorth bugled in surprise. The sun was high above, and the sands were warm with the noon heat.
“Enough light now?” Xhinna called as Tazith began a gentle spiral to a soft landing on the sands.
“If the cold of between didn’t kill her,” Bekka said, jumping down and reaching up to receive the stricken girl.
Xhinna and J’riz did all they could to get her down gently, without stretching open the three long gashes in her abdomen. Weyrfolk rushed to help, including V’lex and X’lerin, who grabbed her, carefully keeping her level, and gently lowered her to a canvas spread over the ground, arrayed with tools.
Taria approached them with a much-relieved Javissa, saying, “Tazith told me what you did, so we came here early and got everything ready.”
Bekka glanced at the supplies all neatly laid out and said to Xhinna, “It might work.”
As they laid her on the ground Jirana stirred and murmured something. Xhinna leaned in close but only caught the tail end: “… anth.”
Xhinna glanced up. They were in the center of the sands, far from the egg the trader girl had claimed as her queen.
“She’s okay,” Xhinna said, but the girl whimpered, her face puckering in pain.
“If she moves like that, Xhinna, I don’t think anyone could close the wounds,” Bekka said, looking up from where she knelt beside the girl.
“Don’t do anything yet,” Xhinna said. Bekka raised her eyebrows in surprise, but Xhinna shook her head, raising a hand as she raced to Jirana’s egg.
Trust me, the girl had said. Ask the queens.
Tazith, send the queen dragonets here, hurry!
They come, the blue replied even as Xhinna felt him leap skyward and arc lazily overhead. Can you help the little one?
Xhinna had no reply.
“Xhinna, what is it?” Jepara asked as she approached with her Sarurth.
“Jirana’s dying,” Xhinna told her, and at the words, her eyes welled with tears. “We’ve got to help her.”
“How?” Meeya asked as she and Calith came nearby.
“Bekka,” Xhinna said, clutching the gold rider, “you can talk to the dragons, can’t you?”
Bekka nodded, her forehead creased in puzzlement. Xhinna grabbed the healer’s hand and placed it on the egg.
Trust me, the little girl had said.
“Everyone, gather around, hands on the egg,” Xhinna said. “Jepara, talk to her.”
“Talk to her?” Jepara repeated in surprise, and then, enlightened, she placed her other hand on the shell and closed her eyes.
“We need to ask Laspanth to help Jirana,” Xhinna said, closing her eyes and placing her hands on the egg, the smallest finger of her right hand brushing the smallest finger of Meeya’s left. Another finger brushed her left hand: Jepara.
Laspanth, Xhinna thought. Help Jirana. Take her pain, give it to us, keep her still so that she can get better.
Beside her, Xhinna heard Jepara gasp in surprise.
“Now!” Xhinna shouted, relaying the same thought to Tazith. She brought her full focus on the moment, on the egg, on the queens, on the small girl who had asked her to trust her and—
It was as though she’d never truly seen before, as if she’d never truly breathed before, felt before. The world of her senses was totally new to her, beyond description, and then—
Pain! She gasped, she went rigid, she didn’t twitch or move a muscle, she just felt pain—roaring, furious pain—and with it, terror: She was dying. She rode down the terror, calmed it, soothed it, held the pain, examined it, compared it to other pains, the pain of her shoulder, the pain of childbirth to come, of Threadscore, of—
“Xhinna!” a voice cried. “Xhinna, it’s done.”
Xhinna opened her eyes and was surprised to find herself on the warm sandy ground where she’d collapsed next to the egg.
“Laspanth?” Xhinna whispered as she recognized that the voice belonged to Jepara.
“She’s fine,” Jepara said. “Bekka is done with Jirana. We should go see her.”
Some twitch, some feeling just at the edge of her mind, tugged at Xhinna and she shook her head. “Bring the egg—Tazith, carry it.”
“I’ve done the best I could,” Bekka told Xhinna wearily. She nodded toward Jirana’s cloth-covered stomach. “She didn’t move a muscle, didn’t make a sound.”
Xhinna felt a painful twinge in her own belly and, wincing, lifted her tunic to stare down at herself.
“Xhinna, what’s wrong with your stomach?” Bekka asked, peering at the reddened skin.
Xhinna didn’t answer her, turning instead to the dark-haired queen rider beside her. “Jepara, how’s your stomach?”
Wordlessly, the queen rider lifted her tunic to reveal three parallel red welts, matching Xhinna’s.
“We took the pain, didn’t we?” Jepara asked then, smiling at Xhinna. “It had to go somewhere.”
“What about the others?” Xhinna glanced over her shoulder at the figure that trailed them silently. “Taria, lift your tunic.”
Surprised, the green rider lifted her tunic above her distended belly. There were three welts across it.
Xhinna looked at her and remembered a hand going to her shoulder even as the dark-eyed woman said, “I had to help.”